Colts' general manager Chris Ballard and head coach Frank Reich discuss where the team stands as well as the NFL combine.
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Is his right arm good?
Colts quarterback Andrew Luck spent more than a month in The Netherlands seeking alternative treatments for his surgically repaired throwing shoulder. Now he's in California for further help.(Photo: Matt Kryger/IndyStar)Buy Photo

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indianapolis Colts want your money, and they’re not being subtle about it. An organization that for 14 months has shielded injured quarterback Andrew Luck from the public eye is now trotting him out like a show dog and having him perform tricks.

Just, no throwing tricks. He’s not throwing a football yet. But that’s not a big deal!

Sorry, that’s not me screaming. That’s the Colts, trying to distract you as they reach gently into your wallet. Since September, this organization has tempered expectations about Luck’s return, but just last week the Colts said – without any ambiguity at all, and without any way to know it’s accurate – that he will be back for the 2018 season opener.

Call it business, call it wishful thinking, but don’t you dare call it a coincidence. And here, I’ve got to hand it to the Colts. They’re good. I mean, they’re good. They can and do obscure and deflect and hide stuff about Luck’s health when it’s convenient, but when they need to flood the market with self-serving propaganda about him? Oh, they can do that.

Let’s not say they’re lying, or even trying to deceive you. That would be going too far. But manipulating you? Oh, we can go there. If they’re going to be as naked with their desire to separate you from a few thousand of your dollars, let’s try not to be naïve on this end.

This started two weeks ago, when the Colts took their fanbase by the hand and began leading it happily, joyously, to the finish line: Thursday, March 8, the deadline for season-ticket renewals to be postmarked and in the mail.

It began Feb. 20, when the Colts held a Town Hall for about 2,000 select season-ticket holders. Before we get into what the Colts did there – and they’re good, they’re so damn good – let’s talk about the date, because the date matters. This was the second Town Hall in franchise history, presumably an annual event going forward. The first one, in 2017, was held in June.

One year later, they held their second Town Hall. But it wasn’t really one year later, was it? It was less than nine months later – not long after renewal forms were mailed to season-ticket holders. And less than three weeks before those renewals were due. Again, call it whatever you want. Just don’t call it a coincidence.

Andrew Luck couldn’t be at this Town Hall. He attended a year ago, five months after the surgery that set this whole damn thing in motion, but he couldn’t be at the Scottish Rite Cathedral Downtown this time. He’s in Los Angeles, doing … something. Throwing … something. So the Colts went the extra mile of taping a video chat with Luck and the event’s host, Peter King of Sports Illustrated, where Luck assured Colts fans in that goofy, engaging, enthusiastic way of his.

“I know in my heart of hearts I’m going to be a better thrower, a better quarterback, a better teammate and a better Colt because of what I’m going through, what I’ve been through and will continue to go through,” he said.

Luck was optimistic, but that’s what he does. It’s who he is. Remember, he had said almost the same thing seven months earlier: “I truly feel in my mind, in my heart, I know I’m going to be better,” he said in July. “I really, really know I’m going to be better.”

So anyway, on Feb. 20 the Colts hold a hurried-up Town Hall and trot out a high-def recording of Andrew Luck and ask him to perform two tricks: Sit! Speak!

Let’s move ahead eight days to Feb. 28, when Colts general manager Chris Ballard stood before the media at the 2018 NFL Scouting Combine and went completely against his nature and did something he just doesn’t do: He guaranteed that Andrew Luck will be ready to start the 2018 season. He didn’t use the word “guarantee,” but here, see for yourself:

The Colts aren't using any of their 60 official interviews to talk to any pure quarterbacks at the Combine, I'm hearing. So it sounds like Luck will be ready, and Ballard knows it. Right? Yes, and yet … wrong.

Thing is, Ballard can’t possibly know when or even if Luck will ever be ready. Not after the 14 months we’ve just witnessed, when nothing has gone according to plan with Luck’s rehabilitation. He began throwing later than normal, was shut down because of pain, then went to Europe to seek … whatever he was seeking over there. He has been back in the United States for 3½ months, and he’s still not throwing a football.

Does all of that mean he won’t be ready for the season opener in 2018? Nope. But it absolutely, unequivocally means the Colts don’t know. They can’t possibly know.

And yet Ballard said what he said on Feb. 28, nine days before the postmark deadline for season tickets. Interesting.

Oh, but the Colts aren’t done yet. These guys are good, and so it was that on Monday morning, as much of Indianapolis – certainly, much of the Colts fans base – was getting ready for another work day with SportsCenter playing on ESPN, a commercial comes on at 7:29 a.m. about Colts season tickets.

It’s a rah-rah commercial, as it should be, with an iron worker forging a horseshoe and references to Lucas Oil Stadium as “our house” and a highlight montage of the Colts’ most exciting players, including T.Y. Hilton, Marlon Mack and Malik Hooker. One player is shown in three different highlights, but just one. And you know which one. And in one of his three highlights, Andrew Luck is zipping a football. See it with your own eyes! (Renewals must be postmarked by Thursday.)

The Colts are good all right. And they know they have to be, because they’re asking for a lot of your money. A friend of mine and his wife have season tickets in Section 425, way up in the end zone, in the fourth of five levels. The price of two seats up there goes for $1,840. Well, $1,844. The Colts are chiseling off another $4 for “handling.” So my friend and his wife have until Thursday to make their $1,844 payment.

And they’re making it. They’re renewing. They’re Colts fans, and that’s the thing about being a fan: You think with your heart, not your brain, and so they hope Andrew Luck is back. They might even believe. But the only thing anyone around here can know is this:

The Colts are coming for your money. And they’re willing to use Andrew Luck to get it.